Recrossed
by Zealous Iconoclast
Summary: When your whole life is changed in the blink of a cosmic clock, how does it feel? Are you exhilarated? Grateful? Terrified? Violated? Or do you even notice at all...


**RECROSSED**

Doctor Donna Eleese took one more morose slug of her bitterly strong coffee and stepped through the door into the lecture theater. In front of her, the sea of first-year coasters just trying to scrape through an unwanted prerequisite in a night section roared dully with the discordant sounds of a hundred individual conversations. Even the brain trust in the front row—the half-dozen who actually bothered to do the readings and work through the practice problems and answer her desultory questions—looked bored and lackluster this evening. It was going to be a long ninety minutes. 

Sometimes she wondered what the point of it all was. She had started out so optimistic and full of life back in the seventies, with revolutionary theories and outrageous but fascinating hypotheses running around her head like so many eager children, all potential. She had really believed in Starbright Project, she had had all the opportunities any scientist had a right to expect. And somewhere out there between hither and yon it had all gone wrong. Starbright hadn't been working, no matter how hard they tried they were no closer to achieving their end, she had tried to bail out in discouragement, and then her _replacement _had arrived…

Now, so many years later that she had almost lost count, she was standing here in front of a crowd of eighteen-year-olds who were here just because their parents were paying for them to be here, about to try to teach them something they really didn't want to know. This was after two hours of preaching to chemistry majors about particle physics, followed by a whole afternoon mentoring a crowd of starving grad students through the angst of preparing action plans for their theses. A meeting with the college board and a bland lunch in the science buffeteria had rounded out the day. When she was done here she could go back to her four dark rooms half a block from campus, make supper for one, and sit on the sofa watching reruns of "Twin Peaks". Was this a fulfilling life?

No time to brood on that now. She cleared her throat and the roar began to die down into the almost-silence that characterized first-year classes. She picked up the chalk and launched herself into the lecture. "On Tuesday we discussed calculations of velocity of an object dropped from a height while moving forward in a horizontal straight line. Today…" She turned towards the blackboard and glanced at the monitor feeding visuals from the Imaging Chamber, where Rear Admiral Al Calavicci was talking emphatically to thin air. The audio was disabled—Ziggy had refused to give any reason why—but she could tell that he was worked up about something. Probably arguing with Sam.

Donna pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. It had been one heck of a week. Weitzman and the rest of the Committee had been hanging around like a bad cold, looking over people's shoulders and asking stupid questions and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Then they had inexplicably fired Al, and equally inexplicably brought him back with a nervous apology and a compensation cheque. Donna had tried to wheedle some kind of explanation out of the project Observer, but he had hurled himself into the Imaging Chamber without giving her so much as the time of day. He was infuriating. If he wasn't such an endearing man she would hate him with a vengeance.

Pulse Communications Technician Tina Martinez-O'Farrell was polishing her bright-blue fingernails and wearing a very self-satisfied look on her face. She had been strangely smug since Al had come back in here this morning with the announcement that Weitzman was headed back to Washington and he was still in charge of this project in Doctor Beckett's absence, and what did he say about gloom and doom around the control room? Exactly. Start smiling.

Donna glanced sideways at Doctor Gushman, the programmer, who was on his back under Ziggy's console, replacing the microchips that had blown a minute ago when Sam had entered the Watergate Hotel.

It had been just over two months of this, and the euphoria of having actually achieved time travel was beginning to wear thin. What good was breaking the barriers of time and space if you couldn't bring the traveler back to testify? And what would happen if they could never bring Sam back? So far he had Leaped from one problem to the next with no sign of returning home, and Ziggy's theory was no longer even credited by the parallel hybrid ego box itself.

She had to admit, though, that this time the Leap was fascinating. Before, Sam had only Leaped into strangers. This time the person inhabiting her husband's body in the sterile and ambiguous whiteness of the Waiting Room was Doctor Gerald Bryant, her one-time English professor. She remembered Doctor Bryant, a dirty-minded old man with a drinking problem and a weakness for his students but also an undeniably romantic streak. According to Ziggy, Sam had Leaped in to him to prevent him from marrying Jamie Lee. Donna was glad. If she had known about the affair she would have tried to stop it herself. She and Jamie Lee had never moved in the same circles, but she couldn't forget the difference between the romantic, idealistic girl and the worn-down, disillusioned wife of an aging alcoholic. If Sam could stop that… now there was something that was worth 2.4 billion dollars a year!

Mind you, Al had been behaving very strangely, so maybe Ziggy wasn't disclosing all the data. When the Observer had come to meet the Committee wearing an enormous, floor-length white smock and a hideous sash Donna had been tempted to call Doctor Beeks. As bizarre as the Admiral's clothing choices were, this was a whole new level of strangeness.

What had she been thinking about? Oh, yes. Jamie Lee. Sam had Leaped into Lawrence College to stop Jamie Lee from marrying Doctor Bryant… no, that wasn't right. Jamie Lee had married her high school sweetheart, some muscle-head named Oscar. They were living in New York, last Donna had heard, content with their shallow, yuppie existence. That stupid computer had got it wrong again, and Sam had been wasting precious time trying to prevent something that had never happened.

Donna slapped her hand down on one of the control cubes. "Ziggy!" she snapped, casting her eyes upwards at the blue orb that everyone habitually equated to the computer's face.

"Doctor Eleese?" Ziggy replied in the cold voice that she always used when roused from silence.

"You've made a mista—"

"Doctor Beckett has Leaped," the computer interrupted. "Difficulty in establishing a temporal lock indicates that he has likely entered stasis."

Donna's heart sank. "He hasn't Leaped home?"

"Negative, Doctor Eleese," Ziggy said. "As I have previously explained, it is most probable that resolving the specific difficulty he is meant to correct will not result in Doctor Beckett's return to his own place in the temporal continuum. Had the retrieval program designed by Doctor Beckett and Admiral Calavicci succeeded in its aim in the first place—"

"Oh, be quiet," Donna said. "Did he do whatever he was there to do?"

A deafening silence met her.

"Ziggy?"

No response.

"Ziggy!"

"Doctor Eleese?" the computer intoned, as impassively as it had the first time.

"Has Sam done what he was there to do?"

"Affirmative. The two young humans are united, and this Doctor Bryant into whom Doctor Beckett Leaped to engineer their union continues his ignominious career as a literary hack without involving himself in any further undesirable relationships with his students." Ziggy took a contemplative pause. "In addition, your presence here indicates further modifications to the original timeline."

"What?" Donna said absently, watching the monitor as Al slumped onto one of the Perspex blocks in the Imaging Chamber, shaking his head.

"I would not expect you to understand, as the time stasis anticontamination field does not affect you. If you will excuse me, Doctor Eleese, Doctor Beckett was inconsiderate enough to Leap in in time to interrupt some extrapolations I was attending to, and now that he is temporarily immobilized I would like to return to them." The computer sounded almost petulant.

"Sure, don't let me stop you," Donna said dryly.

"In all probability you could not, Doctor Eleese," Ziggy commented haughtily.

Donna shook her head in wry amusement. Only Sam could have created a computer that was so brilliant and yet so ineffably annoying. She secretly suspected she had Al Calavicci to blame for that last trait, although the mismatched partners never disclosed any of the details of just how they had incorporated their brainwaves into the project. Now that the Leap was over, Donna was looking forward to a hot bath and a quiet evening on the couch. Maybe she'd pop in a tape and watch a couple of episodes of "Twin Peaks"…

The Imaging Chamber monitor cut out and the door hissed open. Al came out, scratching the back of his neck and shutting down the handlink.

"Gooshie? Sam didn't Leap back, did he?" he asked.

"No, Admiral, I'm afraid not," Gushman said.

"Hmm," Al grunted. He scanned the room as he always did upon entering, raking his eyes delightedly over Tina. He passed Donna, and moved his gaze towards Lieutenant Dalmanay, then turned back, head thrust forward and eyes wide with dumbfounded amazement. "_Donna_?" he gasped.

"Yes?" she said. "How did it go?"

He was still staring at her as if she was a ghost. "Donna Eleese?"

Donna chuckled a little, made nervous by his flabbergasted expression. "Last time I checked."

"You're _here_! My God, he was right!" Al gaped enormously. She hadn't seen him this dumbstruck since… when _had_ she seen him this dumbstruck? He stepped down into the control room proper and approached her warily, as if he was afraid she was going to explode or vanish or something. "Where are we?" he asked, his voice hoarse with astonishment.

"Stallion's Gate, New Mexico," Donna said. "The Project Quantum Leap compound. Is this some kind of joke?"

"The joke's on me," Al whispered in wonder. "I didn't think he'd do it. I was sure you were going to marry the other guy." He stopped dead and a look of numb astonishment crossed his face. "My God, I remember your wedding! Sam was so nervous he dropped the ring—at the reception you and I danced to 'American Pie'! How do I remember that?"

"I'll never forget it," Donna said ironically. "I might have known you'd get the D.J. to play the longest song he could find. I thought Sam was going to slug you."

"My God, and you ironed out that bug in the Accelerator… and the Fourth of July picnic just after your third anniversary… you were at the hearing before the Senate when we were trying to get funding for Quantum Leap…" Al scrubbed his forehead with his cigar-brandishing hand. "I don't believe it!"

Donna laughed. "Al, what are you on about?" she asked.

"Quick! Do you remember the night Sam Leaped?" Al said, still staring at her as if she was some kind of bizarre apparition that he was delighted out of his mind to see, but couldn't quite believe was there.

"Remember? I'm never going to forget it," Donna said. "He must have spent twenty minutes arguing with Ziggy, and I tried to pull him back, but in he went anyway, and then the circuits started spiking, so I had to get onto the switchboard while Gooshie tried to raise you on the phone. And he Leaped. And then you showed up with this brunette… I was furious, because Sam could have been killed, and if you'd been here you might have been able to stop him from getting into the chamber in the first place, so I…"

"Oh, my God; oh, my God," Al murmured, shaking his head. He started laughing. "That lucky son of a gun! I was so sure it wouldn't work, but here you are, Mrs. Sam Beckett, I don't believe it! He was right!"

Suddenly he was embracing her, shaking with laughter and clutching her back in a much more Platonic fashion than he usually did—one reason she didn't normally let him hug her. "I don't believe it!" he repeated. "Donna, Donna, I don't believe it!"

"Believe _what_?" she expostulated, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him back to arm's length.

"You… _here_… wait 'til I tell Sam!" the Observer crowed.

Donna's eyes narrowed. "Tell Sam what?" she asked.

"That you… that it worked! You're here! You married him!" He rumpled his hair with glee. "He's going to be over the moon!"

"Albert Calavicci, we have discussed this!" Donna exclaimed. "You've broken the Quantum Rules already telling Sam his last name, but you _are not_ going to tell him about me!"

"What? Are you crazy? After the fuss he kicked up about trying to get you back with your father? After I put my job and the whole Project on the line helping him? And… but you don't remember any of that, do you? I mean, you—this you—didn't exist in this timeline until a few minutes ago…" He scrubbed his forehead with his hand. "This is making my head hurt…"

"Mm-hmm," Donna said with a nervous smile. It had finally happened. The maniac act wasn't just an act any more: Calavicci had gone off the deep end. She wondered if she could signal to Gooshie to call Verbena.

Al pulled away from her and slapped his hand down on Ziggy's console. "What's going on?" he roared. "How much does she remember?"

The parallel hybrid computer answered dispassionately. "The regulations outlined by Doctor Beckett regarding cross-contamination of alternate timelines prohibit the disclosure of that information under the present circumstances."

"What are you on about, you glorified toaster oven?" Al demanded. "Just answer my question before I have an aneurysm."

"I cannot do that, Admiral. Doctor Eleese? You have exceeded your weekly overtime quota. If you do not leave the control room immediately I will have no choice but to revoke your access until the mandatory clearing period has elapsed."

"Mandatory clearing period?" Donna said. "What is going on here? There's no such thing as a mandatory clearing period."

"My databanks are at variance with that assessment, Doctor," Ziggy deadpanned. "Am I correct, Admiral?"

Al stared at the orb suspended for the ceiling, apparently unable to believe that the computer was actually asking for confirmation from him. "Uh… yeah. Yeah, she's right, Donna. Go catch some down time, I'll see you tomorrow?"

With one more dubious glance at Al, Donna backed out of the room. As she strode away down the corridor she heard the Observer roar at the computer, "_ZIGGY!_"

_MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW_

Donna was halfway to her office, mulling over the bizarre encounter she had left behind, when a page sounded over the intercom system.

"Doctor Beckett to Admiral Calavicci's office, please," Al's voice intoned coolly. "Doctor Donna Beckett to Admiral Calavicci's office."

Annoyed, she changed her direction, and made her way towards the appropriate door. It opened for her and she stepped in. Composed and cool-looking, not at all the frazzled and astounded lunatic she had left behind less than five minutes ago, Al sat behind his impeccably organized desk puffing lazily on a fresh cigar.

"Ah, Doctor Beckett," he said suavely.

"Eleese," she corrected. "If I've told you once I have told you ten thousand times, I use my maiden name for work-related activities. Only Sam is allowed to call me Mrs. Beckett."

"I didn't call you missus, I called you doctor," Al said with an infuriating smirk.

"I use my maiden name for work-related activities," she repeated, hoping he would get the message on the ten thousand and first try. Good luck. He wasn't exactly a women's lib type of guy.

To her surprise, he cocked his eyebrow and laughed a little. "You would," he murmured obliquely. Then he straightened a little. His next words sounded oddly rehearsed, as if he was repeating lines being fed to him from off stage. "Donna, I came out of the Imaging Chamber a little confused. There was a lot going on with that Leap, what with the Watergate break-in and stuff, and I wasn't really thinking straight. Can we just forget anything that was said back there?"

He wanted to forget that he had been acting like an idiot? Okay. Whatever. But there was one thing she wasn't going to let him forget. "You can't tell Sam about me," she said.

"Yes, you said that before," Al told her, nodding somberly. "Could you… uh… refresh my memory and tell me why?"

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream, so she opted for the condescending voice she had perfected when working as a teacher's aid in grad school. She had used it then for the most belligerent first-years, the ones who were taking the course for a prerequisite credit and had absolutely nothing better to do than try to make passes at their tutors. Punks like that were the reason that academia never would have made her a satisfying career. "Sam has to Leap into other lives, pretending to be other people. Sometimes the people he Leaps into are married. How can he pretend to be a married man if he remembers me? Sam isn't like you: he could never be unfaithful…"

"Hey!" Al said indignantly. "I have a strict one-at-a-time policy!"

"_Um_," Donna said skeptically, curling her lip at him. "Well, _Sam_ has a strict one-for-all-time policy. And if he remembered that he was married he would never be able to do things like kiss that Air Force pilot's wife. So he wouldn't be able to maintain his cover and he would never Leap. Therefore, we have to make sure that Sam doesn't find out about me, and that means that you are going to have to keep your big mouth shut."

"Big mouth?"

"Yes!" Donna said firmly. "You can't tell Sam about me. If you do, I'll come down on you quicker than Weitzman, and I'll do more than throw you off the Project."

He grinned. "Now, I do remember this," he said. "You were always an abusive sergeant-major of a scientist on Starbright, too."

"Al, are your screws coming loose?" Donna asked, frowning at him.

He smirked. "Maybe. Ziggy says in a couple of days things should settle down into two separate sets of memories… of course, everybody else will just remember the modified timeline, including you…" His grin broadened. "I know something you don't know, doc!" he chortled.

"I'm not even remotely interested," Donna said. "But don't you dare tell Sam about me. Or else."

Al raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "All right! All right!" he said. Then he looked her over and shook his head in amazement. "But boy, am I going to be there when he finds out! I still can't believe it…"

"Uh-huh," Donna said oddly. He was a strange man, but not usually quite this strange. "If you'll excuse me, I'd like to go back home. You know, where everybody is sane?"

"Who's everybody? You're all alone in that _great big villa_," Al said, and there was a little suggestive note creeping into his voice. Donna knew he was just teasing: he had tried the same jibe dozens of times. She had a duty to play up to him.

"And that is exactly the way it's staying," she said firmly.

"Right." He looked her over in amazement. "Boy, Sam is a lucky dog. Wish I had his connections."

Donna smiled, won over as she always was by his buoyant charm. "Good night, Al," she said.

"Sleep tight, Donna," he said, relishing the words as he took another drag on the cigar and exhaled a cloud of the strong-smelling smoke.

She stepped out of the office and the door sealed behind her. As she started for the elevator, she mentally mapped out her evening. She had some Greek salad in the fridge, and there might be a couple skewers of souvlaki in the freezer. And then some entertainment. She needed something slightly more normal than reality tonight. Yes, she thought with a smile, it was definitely time for a little "Twin Peaks".

FINIS


End file.
